Need
by Ithlien
Summary: A phone call takes place before Willow returned to Sunnydale. Early season 7


Need  
  
************** Disclaimer: Blah bitty blah. I own nothing. Feedback : Sign my guest book, make me happy. Summary: Season 7. A phone call takes place before Willow goes back to Sunnydale. Author's Note- I kind of wanted to write a Willow dealing with her angst fic, but I also wanted to include a possible W/O outcome. This is the result.  
  
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"I just.I felt like I needed to speak with you." Willow said softly, cradling the phone against her head. Actually, she corrected in her head, Giles thought she should make the call. He had held Oz's phone number in secret for years. Only now allowing her to call. Of course, Giles had called Oz and verified that it was okay for her to talk to him  
  
"After two years?" She heard Oz ask cautiously. She smiled, glad that his voice remained the same. And glad that she couldn't see him, so she couldn't see how much he had changed.  
  
" Yes." She answered slowly. Not fully aware that long had passed since. the Initiative.  
  
Oz chuckled softly on the other line. " I thought I was supposed to be cryptic."  
  
" I'm sorry. but it's just. Oz, I've done some horrible things."  
  
" I know."  
  
"What? I mean, how?" Willow asked bewildered.  
  
" Word gets around. So, why?"  
  
She raised an eyebrow. Wondering what he meant. " Why what? Why I started or why I'm calling?" There was no answer. She didn't really expect one. She pictured him shrugging at the other end. " Well.umm. I'm here because I've been going to the people that I've wronged with my magick, and apologizing. It's like one of those twelve step program. It helps. you know. knowing that people forgive me for hurting them in the past."  
  
" Does everybody forgive?"  
  
Willow stopped. " No. They avoid. But, I just. I need to feel that I'm making up for everything. That with the others, I can forgive myself."  
  
" But at some point, you'll have to go on with your life. Will, you can't spend the rest of your life brooding over something that almost happened."  
  
" I killed people Oz. I'm a killer."  
  
" Singular, Willow."  
  
She didn't get him. " What?"  
  
"You killed a person. Not people. Plural, not singular. So why?"  
  
Willow puzzled over the change in the topic. " Oh. what?"  
  
" Forgiveness. I don't remember you ever casting spells on me, Will."  
  
She winced at the sentence. At the slight reference to her downfall. " I still need your forgiveness Oz. Please."  
  
He sighed over the phone. His voice got all scratchy. " Will, I forgave you a long time ago. I never could be mad at you. You know that. So why the call?"  
  
She gave off a watery laugh. "It's stupid."  
  
" Will."  
  
Willow drew in a shaky breath and leaned against the cool wall of the sanctuary. " When I was all Dark Phoenix-y, I had all these thoughts in my head. Bad ones. I blamed everyone I possibly could. I wanted to. I wanted to hurt everyone, the way I've been hurt my entire life."  
  
" Me." He said as a statement not a question. Willow winced, she could hear the range of emotions buried beneath the impartial exterior.  
  
" Yes. I'm so sorry."  
  
" Will, it's not like you came after me with your powers."  
  
" I. I was going to." She listened to the silence on the end of the phone. " I planned that after Jonathon and Andrew, that I would come after you. But Buffy and the others interfered with my plans."  
  
" Why?"  
  
" I. I still hurt Oz. I still hurt! It's been two years and it still hurts."  
  
" I know."  
  
She closed her eyes, and quickly changed the subject. One of equal importance. " You once told me that how the darkness can scare you, how it could overwhelm you. Now that you know so much, does it still scare you?"  
  
" Daily. You can't escape the dark Will, always going to be there. You're just going to have to learn to live with it."  
  
" What am I going to do?" She asked him softly, tears running down her face,  
  
" You keep being Willow."  
  
" I don't know who she is anymore. She's been buried under spells and fear and.everything, for so long. That I forget who she was."  
  
" You are Willow. Willow is you. You never stopped being her. You altered her, and played with her mind a bit. But you never stopped being her."  
  
She smiled, touched by his words. " Thank you."  
  
" For the pep talk?"  
  
" For always being there. Even when you weren't."  
  
" You okay now?"  
  
" I don't think I'll ever be okay. But I'm holding." She thought for a moment. Gauging her next words. " Oz?"  
  
" Yes?"  
  
" I miss this."  
  
" The phone?"  
  
" You. Do you think that..." She trailed off embarrassed at her train of thought.  
  
" That we'll be together again? I honestly don't know. I'd like to believe that one day we will. But right now, we're two different people. Completely different from who and what, we used to be."  
  
" When the time is right you mean?"  
  
" And now is not that time. Later Will."  
  
Willow stood in an empty hall, a dial tone ringing in her ear. Alone. The entire world was all connected, and she was still alone.  
  
And somewhere, in an empty room, with an empty heart. Oz stared at the phone on the hook. Knowing in his head, but not believing in his heart that he did the right thing. She needed to be alone, to recover. She didn't need him. Not now, maybe not ever. Or maybe, maybe she did. Just not now.  
  
************* Fin ****************** 


End file.
